disclaimer – All characters from Durarara! are owned by Ryohgo Narita.
"Dollars" started off as nothing more than a practical joke.
He wasn't quite sure what lead him to suggest the idea of forming a fake organization and then try to make people believe it existed in reality. The only thing he knew was that he had to do something—anything—that was a break from the monotony of his life.
From the beginning, Mikado had decided there would be no rules for joining or staying in the group. All you had to do was be invited into the group. He simply distributed the password to the website and sat back to see what would happen. Since the whole thing was supposed to be a game, he'd rather play without rules.
Rules were limiting; rules made it real.
Well, it was all supposed to be a game.
That is, until people started to call themselves Dollars in the real world. People started using their name to commit crimes, and things quickly spiraled out of control beyond the joke it was supposed to be.
Mikado watched it unfurl with disbelief and a growing sense of horror, his insides seized by a crippling sense of responsibility that threaten to crush him under its weight.
How did their game become a part of reality without him noticing?
Fearing the consequences, the founders chose to escape.
All except him. He couldn't.
The boy told himself that he had a responsibility, a duty to keep Dollars from going rampant.
It was his creation, and he will not let it become corrupt.
(There is good in the world, there is there is there is, he thinks fiercely.)
His parents hadn't wanted him to come to Tokyo, but he had insisted and argued that it was time he learned independence, that he wouldn't bother them for anything apart from the money for tuition. "Masaomi doing fine there on his own," he argued, and they relented for a while, because their boy had never ever ever given them the slightest of reasons to distrust him; "I'll work part time jobs," he'd coaxed, arranging his tone and expression to look as earnest as he felt.
In the end, they agreed. After all, he really was a very good son.
Ah, Ikebukuro.
At first sight, the city overwhelmed him. It seemed to resemble a pulsating, throbbing hum of life and energy that never slept. Everywhere he looked, there were people, people, people and more people. Every one of them with their own lives, their own histories, their pain and suffering, their happiness and their misfortune.
Their own reasons for existing.
Seas of people like this always made Mikado even more painfully aware of how unextraordinary his life was—how average he was.
He didn't need reminding of that.
But here in Ikebukuro, it almost feels as if the city itself is beckoning him, promising more than the humdrum of everyday life. A glimpse of a mysterious black rider, rumours of colour gangs, and a new, exciting reality slowly unfolding in front of him.
Notes: PART ONE. Well, I've never written any fic or stories before, but I just wanted to write a little about Mikado! Probably one of my favourite characters ever, and Narita portrays him as the dummy protagonist and then proceeds to deconstruct the everyman trope so neatly! I wrote this a long while ago, around when volume 9 was published and I happened to find it so I polished the grammar and posted it. It's a bit sketchy but I hope you guys like it!